18-person commission will study oil and gas in Colorado

Jamie Presgrove’s home is slowly becoming surrounded by oil wells in Ault on Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. Environmental groups have proposed two measures stating new oil and gas wells are to be drilled a minimum of 2,000 feet away from homes and schools.
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Gov. John Hickenlooper on Monday created a task force to address oil and gas development in Colorado, in an eleventh-hour attempt to foster compromise over the highly divisive topic before it hits the polls in November.

With Congressman Jared Polis by his side, Hickenlooper announced a "blue ribbon" commission of 18 people will be tasked with studying oil and gas development in the state. The plan is for the group to make recommendations to the state Legislature in 2015.

But the governor's attempted peace treaty between the oil and gas industry and environmentalists further fanned the flames of debate. While groups pushing ballot initiatives eventually agreed to drop their measures late Monday night, the governor's deal still angered grass-roots activists who felt abandoned by their one-time champion, Polis.

Still, Hickenlooper hopes the commission can replace the need for the four oil and gas-oriented ballot initiatives, all of which had thousands of signatures submitted to the Secretary of State's office Monday and were set to appear on the November 2014 ballot.

The governor also suggested the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission stand down from a lawsuit against the city of Longmont if grass-roots groups and lawmakers would drop the initiatives.

As part of the deal, Hickenlooper asked that the COGCC also start enforcing a 1,000-foot setback rule between oil and gas wells and occupied buildings.

Polis, who has been a financial backer for two of the initiatives, lauded the proposed deal as a "victory for the people of Colorado."

"Citizens will be on equal footing with the oil and gas industry," Polis said. "There's a lot of work to be done, but today represents real progress."

Backers of the four initiatives — numbered 88, 89, 121 and 137 — were not pleased with the governor's last-ditch attempt to broker a deal. Initially, all still planned to submit their signatures despite the governor's proffered exchange.

"Until we receive confirmation that industry has withdrawn initiatives 121 and 137, our campaign is moving forward," said Mara Sheldon, a spokeswoman for Coloradans for Safe and Clean Energy, the backer for 88 and 89.

But by 10 p.m. on Monday night, initiatives 121 and 137 were withdrawn, and Sheldon said she planned to withdraw 88 and 89 on Tuesday.

Initiatives 88 and 89 were all that remained of 17 proposed measures that worked their way through the state Legislature in the spring of this year. All were attempts to impose further restrictions on oil and gas development. Initiative 88 proposed a 2,000-foot setback between oil and gas wells and occupied structures; Initiative 89, backed by Polis, would have created an environmental bill of rights for the state.

Reps. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, and Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, were gathering signatures for Initiative 121, which proposed that oil and gas-generated tax revenue be reserved for communities without bans on development. The other initiative, 137, would require fiscal impact considerations for all statutes.

While the intervention brought down the ballot measures, it affected little immediate change on the legal side, as well. The COGCC took no action Monday regarding its lawsuit against Longmont, which passed an outright ban against hydraulic fracturing in 2012.

"The COGCC will likely convene a special meeting this week to address the matter," wrote spokesman Todd Hartman in an email.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry advocacy group, said it will not back down from its lawsuits against cities such as Fort Collins, which passed a five-year fracking moratorium in November 2013.

For grass-roots environmentalists, months of campaigning took an unexpected and disappointing turn on Monday. Many saw Polis' decision to stand with Hickenlooper as a crushing about-face.

"This is definitely not a victory," said Russell Mendell, a campaign organizer with Frack Free Colorado, a nonprofit advocacy group. "It's also a turnabout from Jared Polis, given that there were 150,000 signatures that he had collected, and a lot of people had signed those with the belief that he would move forward."

Most groups, including Coloradans for Safe and Clean Energy, were not expecting the governor's announcement. Polis reached out with a surprise call to the group on Monday.

La Plata County Commissioner Gwen Lachelt got an equally surprising phone call the day before. Hickenlooper called Lachelt on Sunday and asked her to serve as chair of the new commission, along with Randy Cleveland of XTO Energy. Lachelt, who has a long history of involvement with oil and gas legislation in Colorado and founded the industry-accountability group Earth Works, was happy to accept.

But as of Monday, even Lachelt knew little about the commission.

The group will have six local politicians and residents, six industry representatives, and six "respected Coloradans," she said.

As for who those will be: "Your guess is as good as mine at this point," Lachelt said.

The commission hopes to start meeting soon and regularly until the end of year. Despite its hurried beginnings, Lachelt will take the selection of task force members "very seriously," she said.

She hopes the group will be successful where ballot measures and past legislative attempts to compromise have failed.

"I like that the governor and Congressman Polis have taken a bold approach to trying to tackle this issue and trying to avoid the ballot box," Lachelt said Monday. "I am hoping very much that we can come up with some legislative recommendations. But we may not. …We may be back at the ballot in 2015."